


the lost one's struggling

by Monotagar1es



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: After Ending Spoilers (Mystic Messenger), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bittersweet, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Friends to Lovers, MC2 - Freeform, Mental Health Issues, Post-Canon, Ray & Unknown appearances, Recovering Choi Saeran, Recovery, Secret Ending 2, because I love her, not entirely canon compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-11 11:31:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20152897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monotagar1es/pseuds/Monotagar1es
Summary: He's not cured, but he's trying.He's trying.(The journey of recovery is, indeed, a very long one. A more realistic take on the Secret Ending 2.)





	the lost one's struggling

**Author's Note:**

> Secret Ending 2 Saeran is Canon Saeran, fight me.

**1**

Everything hurts.

Hell is flexible. It suits everyone. Saeran always believed that for him, it took the form of the dark, oppressive house in Dangjim; the nightmare full of locks and no keys at sight with the looming shadow of his mother. A claustrophobic mix of loneliness and beatings as only regularity in the never-ending cycle.

But purgatory, Saeran discovers, is a room of a hospital. There's a persistent ache in his muscles, uncomfortably wet and cold skin that takes him a moment to recognize as own. The insistent confusion is automatically translated into feral _fear._

Sure, you can drain the drugs from a body. But Saeran has been consuming elixir for _years_ and that's not something that disappears just like that. The substance was invasive and _pervasive_ enough to leave a deep mark in his system.

Words like _mushrooms, methanol_ —and even a hushed, dubious _scolapamine_— resonate in flashes of consciousness and unconsciousness. They are later spiced with furtive suggestions that whisper ugly things like _schizophrenia_ and _neurological damage._

Saeran is not sure if they are real or not.

Those first days —hours, he can't really say— Saeran exists in a haze ruled by white and blue ghosts around him. There are screams that he doesn't understand as own. Blurred, familiar faces swirling around. He thinks he glances V's features for a second. The flash of his camera blinds him.

He wakes up slowly, in drying sweat, after catching some hours of restless sleep.

And then he notices the face of his twin by the side of his bed.

He lunges at him ripping in the motion the IV as the nurses rush in. 

**2**

They should have put him in custody.

They don't. No psychic ward of hospital thanks to what Saeyoung seem to have forgotten is considered kidnapping in all legal states.

So, hooray for him?

**3**

Second doctor, and counting. A private, book-cover one, courtesy of the C&R empire.

Saeran has quickly come to the groundbreaking conclusion that therapy is annoying.

Therapists always seem to be alert, on edge around him. They disguise it behind a neat and serene professional expression, but the sharp shine of their eyes that speaks of wariness gives them away. It's not surprising, though. His clinic history isn't exactly reassuring; he opened the head of one with a lamp, after all.

There are days of complete silence, where he stubbornly refuses to look away from the low office window.

(A shame, no more second floors for him after he nota al half-heartedly threatened to throw himself off to the balcony.)

There's also rage days, when the violent redness inside him that's never entirely dormant, threats to swallow him whole.

Those are the ones full of smiles that are more tooth than lips. Forty minutes of answers that vary in quick, malicious hissing, and degrees of violent spitting when he feels cornered.

It's like a men's court with shirts that Saeran entertains in insulting or ignoring. It's a pendulum.

There is no midpoint yet. Endless sway. Endless struggle.

He finds a bubbling, spiteful relief in knowing that the trust fund kid and the traitor are spending a good penny in this useless bullshit.

(Not even all the Han fortune can bring a childhood friend back.)

**4**

One week of therapy and half (two missed appointments thanks to a bad mix of temperament, irritation, and his twin) go by.

He prides himself on not having throttled someone.

Yet.

His existence is now measured in blocks of forty minutes and schedules of blue and white pills that were locked away before the word _overdose_ even had time to appear.

Saeyou— _The traitor_ took away the empty, ugly flower vase full with red geraniums (a wise choice) after that first brutally, emotional confrontation that ended with the two in an awkward, unwelcome embrace —one that left him more unsettled than usual for the next three days. 

He wonders that night why the hell Saeyoung would have a flower vase in the first place, incapable of taking care of something _(someone)_ as he is.

Also, red geraniums mean stupidity.

He then tries to sleep, but it's impossible. The darkness of the room and his body seem to have aligned against him. The night whispers things that he can't understand —the language of the shadows and the departed— and his chest and tip of his tongue seem to have dried out from the inside. The tangible absence of something he never really knew it was there until it wasn't.

They call it withdrawal. He secretly calls it punishment.

**5**

Frustration is a spectrum in constant fluctuation in the house. Three people are living in the same space (lately, the appearances of MC went from being just _regular_ to starting to graze the surface of _usual_ if the flood of woman products behind the bathroom mirror are meant to signify something), so altercations are bound to happen. Especially with a person as volatile as him in the mix.

Today, his brother and her almost unfamiliar girlfriend are nestled on the sofa, watching some movie. 

He is sitting arguably peacefully at the kitchen table with a cup of tea. He can clearly see the screen from where he is. 

It just takes a false movement of his arm —a blink of motricity— to the pottery to rush to the floor. Saeran only has a second to consider the fragility of apparent calm before he's surpassed by a rush of anxiety. It's been just ten days since his "release" from the hospital.

The well-intentioned question of _"Saeran? Are you okay?"_ at the sound of broken porcelain and the sight of his eyes becoming dull, drifting far, far away and lost between the checkered tablecloth and the spilled cup, bring him back. And the coming is abrupt and splintered.

_"What?"_

"Everything's okay?" Saeyoung starts rising from the couch, voice light with contained worry.

"I just drop a cup" he can't help but bark, irritated by his fussing with a slight sense of shame to have become the center of attention.

"Do you need any help?" pipes her gently.

_What did I just say, airhead?_ A part of him hiss. For a split second, Saeran thinks about snapping at her, but then reasons that civility could deter the couple enough so he can slip again to his comfortable state of invisibility.

"I'm fine," he grumbles between teeth, kneeling to collect the remains of the cup. He chose a non-descript white one, keeping his hands away from the colorful shelf MC and Saeyoung share.

The pair share lots of things; jokes he doesn't get, a gross liking to shove their tongues down each other throat when they kiss _(ugh)_ and an extreme unhealthy intake of junk food. 

Also stubbornness.

He hears very clearly the soft and swift sound of flats that he knows belongs to his sister-in-law. She's welcomed to the sight of a defensive back and splattered English Breakfast.

"Here, let me help," she says, all softness and amiability. 

"I said I'm fine." he says, abrasiveness dripping from his tone. The girl looks at him with an expression he can't entirely read. It's still in the level of kindness, but with something he understands as watered-down resignation.

He doesn't care. He stays out of sight for the rest of the evening.

**6**

He doesn't _immediately_ regret it, but as it gets dark outside and the motion of his stress ball against the ceiling of his room begins to slow down, Saeran has no choice but acknowledge the latent pulse of a splinter somewhere in his chest.

He feels bad. Saeran resents her a little for that. He already has enough distress and misery on his own to add this foolishness to the list.

_She was just trying to be nice,_ chastens a voice.

_With the person who almost fucking shot her,_ cuttingly reminds another. 

...

Someone knocks the door. 

Saeran frowns, and then opens a slit.

No one.

And then he notices it. On the threshold, there's a steaming, red chipped cup. He blinks, then raises the cup and turns it over.

When he sees the image of the face of the white haired actor in all his sparkly glory, he realizes whom it belongs to. 

His expression for a moment twists into something else. Something that could pass for the breath of a smile, although there are no mirrors in the hall to corroborate.

It doesn't last long. The side of him that is point edges and metal deems with contempt the gesture as gushing.

Still, he takes the cup inside.

**Author's Note:**

> Middle of 2019 and I couldn't help but write this. Is the MM fever still up? Where are my Saeran stans? 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this! I took a couple of creative licenses to make it a little more real. Really sorry if I messed up.  
  
I swear to God this was supposed to be only a couple of vignettes, but then it became something else. So yes, there is indeed more. Would you like to see? ♥ 
> 
> (Psst, we may also see other MC's in important roles. They don't get enough attention in fanfics. <3 )


End file.
